Eating out on tour is either unhealthy, ridiculously expensive, or both.
It has been 24 years since I was on a classic bus-and-truck Broadway national tour. When I toured the country with the 2nd National of The Scarlet Pimpernel, we were in a different city almost every single night. The longest we spent in one hotel room was three nights.
These days I often treat myself to some sushi or a lobster roll. One 2-hour corporate event pays about what a week of non union theater actors make in a week. But there have been far more leaner years than recent successes. I have accumulated numerous hacks over the years.
My home food budget is tighter than ever. In my days of 6-8 club shows a week I wasted WAY too much money at bars and diners before and after shows.
If you eat three meals a day at diners, drive-thrus, and casual sit-downs, your per diem disappears before you hit your second week (second day in some cases). You end up exhausted, broke, and running on junk food.
Over the years, I learned how to live on the road with a budget and routine akin to being at home. Skip the touristy traps. Skip the sit down restaurants. Skip the bars.
Here are the road hacks, gear tricks, and van life strategies that will keep you fed, healthy, and profitable on tour.
1. The Portable Kitchen Setup
You do not need a full kitchenette to cook real meals in a standard hotel room.
Before I hit the road, I caught a TODAY Show segment on hotel travel hacks. The guy had a whole book of them, but the one that stuck with me was cooking pasta primavera in a standard drip coffee maker.
Put your chopped veggies right in the basket where the coffee grinds usually go. Put your dry pasta into the glass pot below. Fill the reservoir with water and hit brew. The boiling water steams the veggies as it drips down to cook the penne. Use the basket strainer to dump the water, toss in your sauce, and let the residual heat finish the job. Every room also has a microwave for backup.
On that national tour, I packed two essentials:
- A 2-burger George Foreman Grill (or a compact panini press).
- A 1-cubic-foot collapsible cooler.
I waited for sales and stocked up on tuna, beans, tortillas, and small sauce packets. Whenever our tour bus stopped near a grocery store, I grabbed real food. I once bought a great steak at an Ohio Kroger and cooked it right on that Foreman grill in my hotel room. I used that same setup for hot paninis, grilled chicken, and quesadillas.
For the price of one mid-tier restaurant meal, I ate well for a week, including steak two to four nights.
2. Master the Lobby Breakfast Raid
Almost every roadside hotel includes some form of continental breakfast in the lobby.
Do not just eat breakfast and walk away. Grab an extra bagel, a couple of peanut butter or cream cheese packets, jelly, an apple, or a granola bar.
Pack them in your day bag. That lobby raid covers your mid-afternoon road snacks, and half the time it doubles as a free lunch before sound check.
3. Essential Van Life Hacks for the Modern Performer
If you want to stretch your road budget even further, steal these practical tricks from the van life and road-warrior community:
- The Rapid-Boil Electric Kettle: A compact, collapsible silicone electric kettle boils water in two minutes flat. It handles instant oatmeal, ramen, hard-boiled eggs, couscous, and pour-over coffee right on your hotel desk.
- The $10 Gym Shower Pass: If you are doing long travel days between dates without booking a day room, a nationwide gym membership (like Planet Fitness) gets you clean showers, clean bathrooms, and a locker room anywhere in the country for practically nothing. LA Fitness has some decent deals, which i prefer as many have a pool.
- Gallon Water Jugs Over Single Bottles: Buying bottled water at gas stations is a steady financial leak. Keep a 2.5-gallon jug with a spout in your vehicle and refill your insulated bottle every morning.
- Grocery Delivery Direct to the Front Desk: If your tour schedule leaves zero time to run to a supermarket, use Instacart or Walmart delivery straight to the hotel front desk an hour before you check in. Your groceries are waiting for you when you step off the bus or van.
4. Low-Cost Downtime (The Las Vegas Rule)
Touring burns money during your downtime if you are not paying attention.
My favorite story from the road: We had a scheduled night off in Las Vegas. I set a strict budget. I spent $5 on penny and nickel slots, and $10 on cheap hot dogs and drinks. I picked up a few free casino drinks along the way and hit a $25 jackpot on video poker, which kept me playing for hours on the cheap row.
Around 8:00 PM, I went back to my room and made myself dinner on my own setup. I fully intended to go back out, but I fell asleep by 9:00 PM.
The next morning, I was the very first person on the tour bus, well-rested and ready to perform, while a few cast members were just stumbling back in from the clubs completely drained. I was a party animal for sure.
5. Portable Bar
Nothing wastes a pay check more than a bar tab. A six pack at the store is the same as a single beer at the bar. I was a whino. Left over from my opera days, I loved a good red. $10 at the store became $30+ at the bar. And the stores had a better collection.
Hanging out at the hotel pools and lounges we met fun folks from around the world.
Be respectful. Don’t get kicked out. Don’t abuse booze and other stuff. You need to focus. But if you are going to partake in adult beverages, don’t waste money at the bar.
HOWEVER as a NYC actor, I am always amazed by local pub rates.
The Bottom Line – ROI
Touring is a job, not a vacation. When you treat your travel like a business, you control your food, protect your rest, and make sure your performance fee ends up in your savings account instead of the nearest drive-thru register. To get a return on investment (ROI) of money, talent and time, you need to keep expenses down. BUT You don’t need to be starving to be a working artists.
(By the way, if you want the full breakdown of road budgets, touring contracts, and business systems to make a real living as a traveling artist, I laid out the entire framework in my book QUIT YOUR DAY JOB. Grab your copy on Amazon or directly through our site).
All books are available free via Kindle Unlimited and inexpensive via Amazon Kindle, paperback and audible.
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